Connolly, one of the most consistent players in the AHL this season, is still waiting for his next chance up top.

"When you were there (the NHL) all year, you want to be there next year,'' he said earlier this week.

Tampa Bay is force-feeding Connolly minutes as an AHL mainstay with the Crunch this season, and the prospect is devouring the opportunity. He is tied for eighth in the AHL with 52 points (24-28) and has rarely turned in a bad game, much less two in a row.

His longest pointless streak is four games. After that, he's gone as long as two games without a point only twice. He has points in 15 of his last 19 games (9-9) and paces the AHL with seven game-winning goals.

"I just think me growing as a professional, I'm learning to prepare better for games, trying to play as well as I can every night,'' said Connolly, the No. 6 overall pick in the 2010 draft. "It's been a good month and a half, that's for sure.

"I didn't really have a specific number of goals or points (in mind). I just wanted to get better every day, It's been good. I've taken huge steps from the start of the year to now. I'm way better prepared now than I was last year.''

Connolly's numbers fit the very definition of a franchise player, which, oddly enough, is precisely the reason that he remains in Syracuse while his equally talented peers are umpwardly mobile.

Connolly played strictly a complementary role in Tampa Bay last season. Lightning assistant general manager Julien BriseBois said the organization wants to push him into a job as a pro team's go-to scorer, valuable experience that the other promoted forwards already had over Connolly.

"Obviously, you're disappointed. Everybody wants to go up there,'' he said, "I understand everything they are saying. For me, it (his career development) is in the long run, it's not in the short run. For me, I'm going to be prepared whenever the time comes to go in there and play a lot of minutes, be a go-to guy.''

And if the Lightning's plan means wearing that title for most or all of the season in Syracuse, Connolly has the vision to look beyond it to see something better.

"I want to play big minutes in the NHL. I don't want to be in and out of the lineup,'' he said. "They are thinking big picture from day one, and so am I. I'm not going to sit here and mope around about not being in the NHL this year.''